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HDTV Buyer’s Guide

by: Richard Park

If you’re thinking about purchasing a new television—for the digital transition or for the start of the football season— you need to know a few things in order to buy the right set for the right price.

Buying a television is not an easy decision. People often go out to the name brand electronic stores and ask a customer service representative what appeals to them. Bad idea. You need to be armed with questions and have a set budget. Customer service will direct you to TV’s that are expensive, which in turn leads to a bigger commission. It helps for you to do some research. Let me put this into perspective for you, ever since the television was created people have spent countless hours gathered around it. If you are going to waste even one hour of your life in front of the tube, you might as well do it right.

Questions and tactics you need to know:

1. Make a budget and stick with it. How much do you want to spend on a TV? The budget is the make or break point of your decision. Don’t be lured into buying a TV that is out of your budget, or else you will be selling your first born in order to watch reruns of “Family Guy.”

2. How many inches do I need? It’s not really the size that matters, but where you stick the TV. Is it going in the bedroom or basement? You should know how big the room is and how far the viewing distance will be from you and the TV. If the viewing distance is only a few feet, then you might consider buying a 32” TV. It’s not rocket science, simply buy the TV that is the right size for your room.

3. LCD or Plasma? This question comes down to your own preference. If you are an avid gamer, the LCD is your best bet. If you want pure picture excellence then the Plasma will serve you right. However, burn in and image retention still exists today in Plasma’s, but not as bad as before. New technology like Pioneer’s orbiter and Samsung’s pixel shifter get rid of any image retention, which in turn makes it impossible for any burn in. Both technologies are great for TV viewing. However, more companies are transitioning from Plasma to LCD technology because of its cost and longer life expectancy. Also, from my own observation, LCD picture quality looks a lot better than Plasma.

4. Know your inputs. I’ll keep it simple: the more inputs the better. When purchasing your next TV make sure it has enough HDMI inputs and components. Also, if you hook up your computer to the TV, look for a VGA or DVI input. If you want to view photos from your digital camera then make sure your TV has a multimedia slot that reads SD memory. Most TV’s these days offer all these inputs but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

5. 1080p vs. 720p. Okay, allow me to explain these numbers in layman terms. If you have the money to buy an HDTV that is more than 50” then go with the 1080p TV. Anything less than 50” makes it very difficult to differentiate between 720p and 1080p. Also, the only sources that offer 1080p contents are Blu-ray and downloadable HD content from the web. When comparing the difference between a 720p and 1080p feed you will see a higher scale in resolution and fewer artifacts.

6. 120hz LCD technology. This technology is about 2 to 3 years old and debuted in both the Sony and Samsung top tier LCD TV’s. 120hz technology, smoothes out the picture and fills in any pixels to offer a better image. This “smoothing” effect makes the picture look almost 3D. This feature is fairly new and has some minor bugs but well worth the price for picture clarity.

I hope those few tips could help you decide on the right TV. If you have any questions about gadgets and electronics feels free to drop a line to Richard@rightwayweb.com

Great article, I recently purchased my TV off of http://www.frys.com which offers better deals than in store. I just bought my TV after 6 months of research and waiting for price drops. Everything you mentioned was dead on but more importantly it also depends on your price range. I personally think saving up a little more to purchase a better quality TV is worth it, but there are plenty of good options out there.

Great article. I really agree with your advice. One tip, however, for your readers is to keep an eye on the deal sites like SlickDeals or TechDealDigger.com which feature price drops on high-quality HDTVs. You can see the deals here: http://www.techdealdigger.com/hot-deals/hdtvs-sale/63